Page 119 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1896 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

tudes important as never before. Another side effect of
flight was the establishment of uniform weather report-
ing, and use of English for air traffic control at airports
everywhere—including even the Soviet Union during
the Cold War.
Rockets were yet another form of transport emerging
from World War II, but their loads remained far more
restricted. Explosive warheads were the most threatening,
but have never been used in practice.The most significant
rocket flights launched various satellites and sensors into
orbit around the earth, or, in other cases, escaped earth’s
gravity to explore the solar system and fringes of the uni-
verse beyond. Such sensors have expanded information
about the earth, moon, planets and stars enormously
since 1957 when the Russians first launched Sputnik into
orbit. Americans countered with the feat of sending men
to the moon in 1969 and returning them safely. But the
future of space travel remains uncertain. Being extremely
A row of China’s most popular means of costly, it will not likely affect everyday life in the way older
transport: the bicycle. With roads filled to changes in methods of transport have done throughout
overflowing with new imported cars, and the past. But disaster from nuclear warheads delivered by
narrow hutong alleyways to traverse, the rockets still remains a threat to the future of humankind.
people of China depend on their bicycles To sum up: Human beings have invented more and
to get them from here to there. more powerful ways of moving themselves and other
things across the face of the earth and, more recently,
through the air and into outer space. Successive systems
come of age during World War I.Transcontinental flights of transport defined the range and intensity of contact
were pioneered in the 1930s, but Allied armed forces first local populations had with outsiders; and those contacts
made large-scale air transport global between 194l and in turn regulated the frequency with which important
1945. Planes became faster and larger in the following new things, skills, and ideas caused people to abandon
decades and air transport expanded accordingly. By the familiar ways and try something new. Accordingly, as
1950s, variously subsidized national airlines combined to transport and accompanying communication intensified,
make tourist and business travel by air normal. Air deliv- the pace of social change accelerated, distressing most of
ery of mail and important packages displaced older means the people affected.
of transport for long distances; but airplanes seldom car- This is the awkward state of human society today. But
ried heavy objects or bulk commodities.Their high speed as always the future remains unknowable. We can be
came at a cost that made air transport a semi-luxury. sure, nonetheless, that transport will continue to affect
All the same, in Arctic lands and some other barren how people live, altering everyday experience by bringing
and remote regions, light airplanes became the only way novelties from afar for us to accept, reject, or modify just
to come and go, while long-distance flights, following as our predecessors have always had to do.
great circle routes, crisscrossed the globe, weaving a new
William H. McNeill
pattern that made passage across high northern lati-